Sean Harper

Co-founding Managing Director at Westlake Village BioPartners

Co-founding Managing Director
2019 - Current
As managing director of Westlake Village BioPartners, Sean uses his breadth of experience to identify promising new therapies and technologies and launch life sciences companies to address significant unmet medical needs.

Executive Vice President, R&D
2002 - 2018
From 2002 to 2018, Sean worked for Amgen, rising to become head of R&D in 2012. In that role, he managed investments of more than $3.5 billion annually, applying breakthroughs in science to address some of society’s biggest health challenges. Sean put Amgen on the leading edge of the industry in a number of notable areas, including utilizing the increasing understanding of human genetics in drug target identification and validation and developing novel platforms and modalities to target some of the most difficult-to-treat diseases. Sean was involved in the strategic deployment of Amgen’s venture capital funds, acquisitions of smaller biotech companies, and licensing opportunities. Earlier in his time at Amgen, Sean held a number of key leadership positions, including establishing the translational medicine group focused on biomarker discovery, development and integration into early-stage clinical studies. He also held positions as head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Safety, and head of Global Development/Corporate Chief Medical Officer.

Clinical and Genomics Researcher
1996 - 2002
Clinical research and clinical genomics researcher.